Guarapo Restaurant Review

: Local restaurateur Mauricio Fraga-Rosenfeld has dreamed some lively Latino dreams and concocted this Arlington destination that is part restaurant and mostly lively nightclub. We've lolled there several times, enjoying the dark and clubby ambience and pulsating Latino beat when the performers take the spotlight several nights a week. But foodies will thrill to what the kitchen produces: tapas of flaky-crusted empanadas, Andean potato cakes with various stuffings, and griddle cakes stuffed with pork or with Spanish chorizo---all preambles to big-deal entrées that include Cuba's national dish: ropa vieja (shredded beef) and pollo adobado (split chicken breast rubbed with adobado). It's best to bring a group of friends so that the ordering of many tapas and other cositas ricas allows plenty of menu samplings. But save room for the dazzling tres leches cake, so rich that you'll need to adjust your belt. This may be the only---or one of the very few---DC locations that offers guests the arguileh, or brass water pipe, with flavored tobacco. All this makes for exotic doings in staid Arlington.